Donum
by Blame-It-On-The-Alcohol
Summary: Love is different for everyone. A mentor sends a final gift to her tribute, and in the process comes to terms with her past. For Caesar's Palace Color Challenge: Brown.


**I'm slowly but surely progressing through the Caesar's Palace Color Challenge Prompts. (Brilliant forum by the way, check it out!) I have written five so far: Broken Strings for Green, The Fifth Stage for Pink, Goodnight, Panem for Gray, Never Forget for Bronze, and bluesky for Rainbow. This is for Brown, and it's called Donum, meaning Gift in Latin.**

** Kara x**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Donum<strong>_

_Please wake up…**please **wake up…_

I run my fingers anxiously through my hair as the pack of Careers advances through the woods, dangerously proximate to his clearing. He's sleeping soundly, cloud of wispy blonde hair obscuring his emaciated features, and he almost looks _peaceful. _

Leo Oliver, the 14-year-old tribute for the 56th Hunger Games from District Six. My District. It's the Final Ten, and it's been _sixteen years _since _both _the Sixes made it this far.

_I won my Games sixteen years ago. I saw them…kill him…my District partner…it wasn't quick…and his screams still resound in my head whenever nightmares imprison consciousness. That's how I managed to find the strength…to murder all of them. It was pure luck and madness. He should've won. Not me. Never me._

_This boy should never have gotten this far, but I'm glad he has. He reminds me of my District partner…something about the eyes._

I fix my eyes unwaveringly on this familiar stranger and refuse to look away even for a moment, as if my constant vigilance could somehow alert him, warn him that his peace could be about to become eternal. But his eyelids don't flicker open and freezing cold dread is pooling in the base of my stomach.

Charkle, my partner, is smiling from ear-to-ear. The girl, Thera, is ruthlessly smart and has already picked off two of the Careers. She's the third favourite to win, just behind the brute from Two and the sadist femme fatale from One in the betting stakes.

_You'll never guess who is the least favourite._

_Right first time._

I stifle my agonised shriek as the pack of _vultures _burst through the trees and descend on Leo, awakening him _far too late _from his semblance of peace. He desperately tries to run, but they pin him down…and the girl from One raises a mace, smirk fixed on her beautiful face, full lips curling slightly…

_They're going to kill him. Slowly. Just like they did sixteen years ago…but this time, they can't make me watch._

The sadistic mentor from One is laughing hysterically as his girl smashes down the mace a millisecond after I turn away, burning crystal tears stinging my eyes and dripping through the slats between my fingers. Screams ring through the room and damn the consequences, I start crying agitatedly as the mace clunks down again and again and again and _why doesn't she just finish him off already? Oh yes, because it's the Games, and this Game turns children into monsters._

I jolt as I feel a surprisingly reassuring hand on my shoulder. _Mantra, the male victor from Three. His tribute died in the bloodbath. He was lucky; he never got to know his. If you don't know them…it's not as painful when they're ripped away._

"_It's OK, it's over, you can look now."_

Trembling in shock, I look upwards to see Leo; his breath ragged and eyes dark, scarlet pooling on the floor below him. _They smashed his legs, so he wouldn't be able to run and so his death would be long-drawn-out and painful. _I want to cry and stab someone at the same time, eyes locked on the terrified, confused expression on this _child's_ face. But his cannon hasn't rung yet, although considering the rate at which his scarlet life is pouring onto the ground, it won't be long.

_There's got to be something…anything…_

Frantically, I scan the list to see if there's anything that we can get to save him, but with the amount of sponsor money I have, even if I were to beg Charkle for all his sponsor money, I still wouldn't have enough to get close to saving him.

_Please let a meteor hit the rest of those kids, so I can get him home…they're all going to die anyway, even the one who lives will be dead…might as well make it quick…_

No fireball streaks through the sky, and Leo's light is dimming. I glance again at the amount of money I have. _133 Panem dollars. _At this stage in the Games, the only thing I can buy is…

_Perfect._

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><p>Charkle stares at me in disbelief as I start rapidly typing on my screen, requesting Express Delivery, and exactly three seconds after I place the order, the money on the screen depletes to $3 and the silver parachute comes ghosting through the painted sky.<p>

Leo lifts his head slightly, wincing as more droplets of sweat bead on his pale forehead, and manages to just reach the silver cloth with his fingertips. After much effort, he sits it on his soaked lap and gently peels open the basket.

Inside is a single item; a chocolate bar.

"_WHAT!" _Charkle explodes, jabbing frenetically at the screen. _"You gave him a chocolate bar? Why the hell would you do that-"_

I block out everything but the awed expression of my little dying tribute. He holds the chocolate curiously in both hands, sniffs it, tears off the wrapper with such vigour you'd never think his legs were smashed to fragments of blood and bone.

_He doesn't even know what it is. _I feel my once icy heart break.

He stares with child's eyes as he licks the chocolate bar slightly, and a look of wonder takes him over ravenously devouring it. As he takes the last bite, recognition flashes across his eyes and he laughs humourlessly, resignedly; looks up into the sky, and whispers in a fading voice,

"_Thank you."_

_**Boom. **His death rattles the air, rippling through the force field._

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><p>Nightlock-laced chocolate. I could at least make his death quick and relatively painless.<p>

"_What the heck were you thinking?" _Charkle bellows into my ear. _"The kid would've died anyway, and you could've transferred the money to Thera instead of wasting it all on a doomed tribute!"_

I whip my head around and look into his angry brown eyes. Behind them is a barely detectable layer of sadness, visible to me only because I'm so intuitive to emotions, especially sadness. _All Victors are._ I just smile and gesture to my screen, where Leo's tiny, fragile body is lying still, the swirls of chocolate brown mixing with the red-brown stain marring the ground, and as the hovercraft lifts him up, there's a ghost of a smile visible on his face.

_One thing being a Victor teaches you is that love is different for everyone. For him, love was chocolate brown, a sweet passage to darkness. Love was one last gift. Love was letting him go. _

"_Yes, he was a doomed tribute," _I smile, _"but he was also a child. And children…"_

I get choked up before I can finish my sentence, crystal brimming in my eyes, but I force the tears back. I can't force _his _smiling face out of my mind's eye, though; smiling in the night sky, at peace, just like Leo. I know full well his bright and hopeful face will never leave me. He was a child…like Leo. Innocent, sleeping Leo.

Forgive me, Leo. Forgive me, Kai. I never wanted to win.

"_Children…deserve gifts sometimes. So they can look into the swirls of sweet chocolate brown and know...they're loved."_


End file.
